After dumping my cell phone onto a hard wood floor one too many times I started looking around for an alternative to leaving it on the window sill while charging overnight.
There just isn’t any room for a table in the bedroom, even a small one. Besides, a table would just give the cat a more secure footing from which to knock the already battered cell onto the floor. I needed a wall dock.
I’d seen a number of fancy, probably pricey, wall docks online but nowhere local seemed to have them. Loathe to spend real money on something so simple and superfluous, I set the thought aside. Then suddenly I was seeing homemade versions everywhere.How much cheaper or easier can you get than an empty plastic bottle and some scissors? I grabbed a two liter soda bottle out of the recycling and fetched out my craft scissors.
Cuttin’ Up…Mark 1 and Mark 2
A couple of snips, a hole for the plug and I ended up with this:
It works just fine but I wasn’t very happy with dumping my phone head down into the dock. I wanted to lay it horizontal and face out so that it could act as my night clock.
Without bothering to take measurements I decided a square juice bottle (left photo) was the answer:
It wasn’t.
I elected not to further modify the juice bottle for two reasons.
1.) All these bottles mentioned so far share the same type of rigid plastic. While it makes for a good, stable platform it’s difficult to cut cleanly and tends to crack and break.
2.) I’d thrown the juice bottle in the recycling bin when I decided I didn’t like it.
Maybe a large mouthwash bottle cut low on the sides to make a platform…I’m sure it would have worked fine had I not cut the front so low. It left very little ‘front wall’ for the phone to rest against and the phone wouldn’t lean back because of the charger cable.
Finally, A Port For The Phone
At this point, I also gave up on the landscape placement and the face out orientation (the clock was too bright anyway) and started inspecting every plastic bottle in the house for my next attempt.
I settled on a body wash bottle that was in the shower and nearly empty. Once it was available I rinsed it out, peeled off the labels, and cut it down.
The biggest thing this version has going for it is that the plastic is flexible, easy to cut, and not prone to breaking. The cut of the ‘phone bucket’ is still a little high. By the time I plug in the adapter there’s little room for the phone to squeeze in. I can fix this by shifting the whole thing down an outlet but rarely bother as I unplug the charger every morning.
Evaluation
Plainly any flexible plastic bottle is suitable for this project. The ones used here are all clear only because that’s what I had in the recycling bin. Some colored bottles may fit your decor. Likewise, there are paints that work on plastic or contact paper galore that will work to class up your new wall dock. And, when you get tired of that one, throw it in recycling and start over.
